Find out how I earned 130,000 airmiles in my half year AVIOS update

AVIOS half year update 2017

Well it’s time to share the results of my hard work travel hacking. I have been adopting a slightly more diversified strategy this year as I have so many airmiles, I cannot accumulate the companion vouchers quickly enough to use them. Why pay double when I can get a two for the price of one right?

So here is what my travel hacking efforts have produced in the way of rewards.

Comfy rooms at the Intercontinental Alpensia – just one of the rooms I have earned points from this year!

Well, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that my allegiance is firmly focussed on IHG this year. I have discovered their Accelerate offers and am finding these to be not only fun (sorry, I am a geek at heart!) but very lucrative. Plus, their beds are so much comfier than the Hilton’s beds!

I have also dabbled with SPG and really like the design of some of their properties, but there are only a few options in the UK. It is possible however to transfer these points to Marriott although i may go check out the Abode in Liverpool before giving up the SPG ghost!

Airmiles

So how have we been doing on the airmile front? Well it is not too shabby for a UK hacker, as this tally of our points earned in 2017 shows.

So between my husband and I, we have earned 129,506 so far this year. That is 125,364 into British Airways and 4,142 into Lufthansa. This is not quite on a par with the 332,000 airmiles I earned last year but then again, I wasn’t racking up credit card sign up awards for hotels last year.

Our best earnings options

As you can see our earnings come mainly from credit cards, Tesco and Top Cashback. If you have not already checked out credit cards which can bag you free travel, you are missing a trick!

Redeeming points

We’ve been pretty busy putting them to good use too, booking reward flights to Albania, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.

Source: Pixabay

I was pretty excited when I used a bunch of miles to book First Class flights to Abu Dhabi with British Airways, (no worries about paying for drinks in First!) and First class flights on to Qatar to see a fellow MBA pal. My excitement was short-lived as only two weeks later the feud in the Middle East blew up. Who knows if we will get there.

This could be you…

So why not? If I can organise myself to earn this number of points, even in the very stingy travel hacking universe that is the UK, then so can you! I have earned enough points for a full week in fab hotels and am not far off earning enough to fly long-haul business class to China.

I would love to know how you travel hackers are getting on of course. Perhaps you have some great ideas for how to earn yet more points that I am not considering. Well, don’t be shy, feel free to have your say in the comments.

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About Anne

Anne is the founder and editor of TravelTheGlobe4Less. If she isn't travelling, she is thinking of travelling or planning her next trip. She has visited over 90 countries on six continents and sampled everything from backpacking to bank bursting travel. Her mission is to help you enjoy more luxurious travel without the luxury price tag through the use of airline and hotel rewards and other money saving travel tips

We earn points on our credit card that is linked to an airline and manage to get a couple of free domestic flights a year, which is really handy. We haven’t earnt anything huge enough to take us overseas though (which is hard from Australia, I’m guessing?). We are members of IHG, so maybe we should look into using them more and actually earning some decent rewards! Thanks for the inspiration!

Wow, you’ve earned quite a lot of miles in half a year! I’m impressed! Must admit we rarely pay much attention to miles when booking flights or hotels, but definitely should do it more often. Thanks for sharing your post!